He shook away those thoughts before they turned down a path he didn’t want to walk today and instead focused on the way to the barn.
“You ever milk a cow, city boy?”
“No, but I’ve milked a goat.” How different could it be?
John Paul stopped in his tracks, and for the first time since Zane had arrived he felt like he had the jump. “For sure?”
“I’m more than just a pretty face.”
John Paul laughed and slapped Zane on the back. “You’ll do, city boy, you’ll do.”
“So what do you think of the Englischer?”
Katie Rose shrugged at her niece’s question, then nodded toward the mound of dough rising on the butcher block countertop. “That needs punchin’ down.”
Mary Elizabeth popped the last bite of cookie into her mouth and wiped her hands on the damp dish towel. “He’s cute, don’t you think?”
Cute wasn’t the word that Katie Rose would have used to describe Zane Carson. He was . . . disturbing. Those knowing brown eyes, deep and bottomless, seemed to search her soul. He had taken her hand and stared at her, not lettin’ her go when decorum demanded. And that was disturbing.
Katie Rose shrugged. “I guess. If’n you like Englischers.” She couldn’t say that she did. Not that she disliked them, but they were outsiders not prone to the traditions of the Plain people. And men in general, well, she had accepted the plan God had for her.
When Samuel Beachy had left to discover the ways of the Englisch world, she had been devastated. She had loved him so very much. It wasn’t always the way of the Amish to love before marriage, but they had been truly blessed. Then Samuel had come to her one night and confessed that he wasn’t ready to join the church, that there was a great big world outside their little community. The time they were allowed to experience it just wasn’t enough to see everything that he wanted to see. He left the next morning before anyone was awake, leaving a note for his father. The bishop had been crushed that his eldest son had left, but Katie Rose hid her mourning behind a smile. After a few years, the smile became genuine instead of forced, no longer a place to hide, but her makeup as a person, as a Christian.
Without Samuel there, Katie Rose joined the church and took over teaching the children in the community. That was where she belonged. In time she knew that this was God’s plan for her. Teach the children and raise little Samuel for Gabe. She was happy with her life. It was fulfilling. She didn’t ask for more, to do so would be ungrateful. She had plenty to fill her prayers—her mother’s health, peace for Gideon, knowledge for Annie, safety for John Paul. More important prayers than her personal wants.
“I thought he was really handsome.”
Katie Rose did too, but no way would she admit to that. “When did you start carin’ about such things, Mary Elizabeth?”
Her niece blushed. “I am almost sixteen.”
“You just turned fifteen.”
“A year, then. Won’t be long before I can attend a singin’.”
Katie Rose shook her head. “You’d better not let your father hear you talk like that.”
“Isn’t that what we all long for? To be old enough to start to enjoy the world? Maybe take a carriage ride with a boy, drive in a car—”